Drag Me To Hell (2009) is Sam Raimi's long-awaited return to the horror genre. The movie stars Alison Lohman as Christine Brown, a loan officer who forecloses on an old Gypsy woman's home for the sake of a promotion. Big mistake...

Badass Grandma: For an old woman, Sylvia Ganush, the gypsy who sets the Lamia's curse on Christine, could put up a fight.

Battle in the Rain: Christine finally faces the source of her strife by driving to the cemetary where Mrs. Ganush is buried. After she arrives, the rain starts. She digs out Mrs. Ganush's grave, opens the coffin, and shoves the cursed button inside the corpse's mouth. However, she is deep in the ground, and the rain is heavy: the grave begins to flood, miraculously allowing the corpse of Mrs. Ganush to grab her hair in an attempt to pull her under. Christine successfully subdues the corpse and escapes the grave. The rain stops.

Cat Scare: While Clay drives Christine home, Mrs. Ganush apparently attacks the car on the driver's side . . . except it isn't Mrs. Ganush, but an old man cursing her with spite reminiscent of the old lady . . . wait a second, where's the envelope? This Cat Scare allows Christine to make her fatal mistake.

Chekhov's Boomerang: Christine accidentally leaves her cursed cuff button in Clay's car, and dear, sweet Clay is thoughtful enough to return it to her at noon on the Third Day.

Creator Thumbprint: Along with the Oldsmobile mentioned above, Christine discovers plot-crucial information from an article in a newspaper near the climax. This also occurs in Spider-Man and A Simple Plan, all directed by Sam Raimi. What makes this plot device so specific to Sam is that, after each protagonist reads the relevant article, they act with the belief that their situation will improve because of the information they read; every time it deteriorates.

Creepy Changing Corpse: Christine sees the corpse of Mrs. Ganush staring straight ahead, directly at her; after she walks around the coffin that holds the corpse and talks to Mrs. Ganush's granddaughter, she looks at the corpse again to see its eyes looking at her sideways; again, when she digs it up from its grave, its eyes are looking upwards, at her.

Designated Victim: Sam Raimi has explicitly stated in an interview that Sylvia was the victim of the story. While it most certainly doesn't appear that way at first, closer watching suggests that it wasn't the old woman who attacked Christine, while Christine's behaviour becomes more typical of a horror protagonist as the movie progresses to avoid her fate.

Disproportionate Retribution: A theme of the movie, and part of the horror; you don't have to do much wrong for something awful to happen to you.

Foreclose my house after repeated warnings? Fail to convince your supervisor to give me another chance? Force me to move in with my loving daughter? I'll condemn you to hell...

The poor 10 year old kid who was condemned to hell for just stealing a gypsy necklace, which was quickly returned to them by the kid's parents, no less (most likely because they knew the possesser of the the necklace would burn in hell).

Diabolus Ex Machina: Christine thinks she's given the button to Mrs. Ganush and that the curse has been passed, but finds out that she accidentally gave her the coin instead. Cue her getting dragged to hell.

Downer Ending: Despite all attempts to cancel out the curse and save herself from eternal damnation, Christine ends up being pulled down into the burning flames of Hell all the same.

Ontological Inertia: The curse set upon Christine by the old woman is still in effect even after the old woman dies.

Orifice Invasion: The fly that ends up going into one of Christine's nostrils while she is sleeping, audily buzzes around inside her nasal cavity for several seconds, then crawls out her other nostril. And she doesn't wake up!

Poor Communication Kills: Evidently, the following is Clay's thought pattern the night before his holiday with Christine: "Why is there a coat button in this envelope? Oh, that's the thing that Christine was stressing about, isn't it - the thing she was sure would send her to Hell? What a stupid thing to assume: I haven't seen a thing to suggest that she's in any danger at all. Still, she was pretty worried about it. She needs to relax a little: I can return it tomorrow." The first day of their holiday also happens to be the final day in the cycle of the curse. In the end, the trope is Played Straight.

Sadly Mythtaken: So off, it must be intentional. Lamiae are Greek, female, (usually) half-serpent demons that either eat children or young men in the vein of succubi. The Lamia in the movie is a goat (the fortune-teller used an illustration of Baphomet while explaining everything to Christine). They must've been keeping the real Lamia in mind, because during its first visit to Christine its silhouette is first a shapely woman, which then changes into a goat.

The cat scene is a direct visual callback to "YOU LOVED HER!" from the original.

When Christine emerges from the water in Sylvia's grave, she comes out with her right arm stretched out. This is a direct reference to the poster of the original The Evil Dead (1981).

Night of the Demon/Curse Of The Demon: Sam Raimi knew they were doing a retread of this classic British horror movie, right down to the manner of the Lamia's manifestations and the train station ending. Though, to be fair, that film didn't have a Downer Ending. If it weren't for the change of characters and location, it might as well have been a Remake.

Shower of Angst: Averted. Rather than contemplatively considering every action she took over the past three days after her visit to Mrs. Ganush's grave - deliberately condemning someone to hell, possibly taking the wrong envelope from Clay's car - Christine goes home and takes a nice, hot shower, only with the regret of refusing the gypsy an extention.

Trailers Always Spoil: The trailers feature a part of the last scene of the film. It may not necessarily be seen as a major spoiler. Many viewers may see it as snippet from a final showdown or something, as opposed to the last thing that happens. It's only when the climax occurs with that scene not yet happening that you realize that Christine is fucked.

Yank the Dog's Chain: Christine actually gets two of these in the film. The first is after the ritual where it seems they successfully got the Lamia off her back. Only to be told they just banished it away for the moment and the curse is still in effect. If that wasn't bad enough, the only one who could stop it just died using up all her energy. So she's given the button in an envelope and told to give it away to another poor sap to save herself. After a few considerations Christine actually makes a surprisingly smart choice and tries to give it to Ganush, despite the fact she recently died. After much struggle, it seems she finally pulled it off and everything all peachy. Good things are happening to her and her BF and she are set for a romantic getaway. However while waiting on the train platform said BF pulls out the button, it having gotten mixed up during a near car accident. And well... the rest is history.

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